


I'm Gonna Help You Swim

by carnationhes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Depressed Louis, I haven't really read this over since I edited it like 3 days ago so it might suck sorry, M/M, Mental Health Issues, but writing it kind of helped me get out of it so, honestly this is just kind of sad, idk - Freeform, it's kind of based off of a really bad day I had last week, it's very very angsty lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 22:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4322547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnationhes/pseuds/carnationhes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Harry’s voice makes Louis think of warm things, and gentle things. It reminds him of good memories, and makes him feel less cold sometimes, like a blanket. “Can you close the curtains.” Louis croaks. It feels like the first time he’s spoken in forever, and already enough words to last a lifetime. Harry hesitates, pulling Louis in closer, like he’s unsure if he’ll still be there when he comes back from the window. The moment, passes, though, and Louis feels the mattress shift as Harry rolls over and stands up, bare feet shuffling over the carpet. He hears the rattling of rings sliding over the curtain rod, and the fireworks behind his eyes are replaced with black. If Louis knew anything, he knew that the dark made existence a much more bearable experience.'</p><p>Louis gets sad sometimes and Harry can't fix it, but he can make it a whole lot easier</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Gonna Help You Swim

Louis wakes up to a kiss on the cheek, and a gentle hand pushing the hair back off his forehead. He doesn’t open his eyes, because he knows the sun is peeking in through the curtains and he isn’t ready to leave the night behind yet.

“Hey, love, good morning.” Harry’s murmuring in his ear, but it’s drowned out by the screaming in his head, don’t leave me, and stop expecting everyone to stay. He should open his eyes, or whisper good morning back but he’s still too warm tucked into Harry’s side, and it’s still too dark behind his eyelids to have to worry about it. 

The sun spilling into the room is painting Louis’ vision of the back of his eyelids in angry reds and bright yellows, and the harder he squeezes them shut against the harsh light, the more fireworks of colour burst behind his eyes. Louis was tired of waking up this way, but then, he was tired of waking up in general.

“I’m going to go make breakfast, alright? You can stay in bed, I’ll bring it up when It’s finished.” Harry whispers, getting up and leaving Louis alone, tucked into the quilt. Louis wanted to stop Harry, tell him that there was too much oxygen in the room for him to breathe alone. He wanted to reach out and stop him, maybe ask him to pull the curtain all the way closed or make him promise to never leave, but his arms are filled with lead, and by the time he tilts his head back, and untucks his limbs he can hear the kettle whistling downstairs. 

The air in the room presses down on him, pressuring him to drag the oxygen in and out of his lungs at an agonizing pace. The quilt weighs on his small frame, and it all feels like too much. He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but he knows the sharp glare of the sun would just burn behind his eyes, and encourage the tears that already clog his throat, so he keeps still. Sometimes when he kept still long enough, he wonders if he really even exists. He wonders if it’s even necessary to keep breathing in, or if he even still was. 

He wants to get up and join Harry in the kitchen. He wants to sit up and call for Harry to come back and reason with the screaming inside his head, because he was the only one who could get it to quiet down when it got this bad. It was the kind of screaming thoughts that seemed to fill up entire rooms, entire houses, and drown out everyone inside them.  
The sound of bare feet padding up the stairs brought Louis tremendous relief, easing the loneliness by a degree. He listens to Harry slide in the bedroom door, and place the breakfast plates beside the bed with a clatter, the mattress dipping down as he sits down beside Louis.

“I’ve brought breakfast, are you up for it today?” Harry asks softly, brushing Louis’ hair out of his eyes, and rubbing his back; gently pulling his arms away from where they curled around his face and body. Always gentle and kind and careful. Louis couldn’t stand to continue pulling oxygen into his lungs for another minute, and the idea of food seemed entirely unnecessary, so he shook his head, squeezing his eyelids tight again. He means to draw his arms back up protectively but he’s not sure if his brain and the rest of his body are working together. He’s not entirely sure that his arm are even arms, they feel a lot more like leaden blocks.

Harry makes a small noise, continuing his soothing motions, and Louis hates it. Harry shouldn’t have to deal with him like this. “Can you open your eyes for me?” He asks in a soft voice, tinged with what could either be sadness or pity.

Louis shakes his head again, the thought of seeing the crumpled sheets beneath him entirely too much. “Sorry” He whispers, shame washing over him in waves.

“What can I do for you, baby? Why don’t you want to wake up today?” Harry is lying next to Louis again, wrapping his arms around his small waist, and tangling their legs together, creating a pocket of warmth between them. Louis feels bad. Harry is all warm and soft and loving, and Louis is sharp edges and bitter cold.

Harry’s voice makes Louis think of warm things, and gentle things. It reminds him of good memories, and makes him feel less cold sometimes, like a blanket. “Can you close the curtains.” Louis croaks. It feels like the first time he’s spoken in forever, and already enough words to last a lifetime. Harry hesitates, pulling Louis in closer, like he’s unsure if he’ll still be there when he comes back from the window. The moment, passes, though, and Louis feels the mattress shift as Harry rolls over and stands up, bare feet shuffling over the carpet. He hears the rattling of rings sliding over the curtain rod, and the fireworks behind his eyes are replaced with black. If Louis knew anything, he knew that the dark made existence a much more bearable experience.

Slowly, he rotates his wrists and ankles, and pries open his eyes, as Harry joins him again on the bed, pulling the quilt over their heads to create a tiny blanket fort, like Louis would build for his sisters when they were young. Vaguely, he registers Harry’s arms around his waist again, and the warm breath ghosting over his forehead. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asks after a while, hooking his chin over Louis’ head. He doesn’t. Louis raises his arms from the mattress, and takes hold of Harry’s, watching how the other boy’s fingers envelope his own, how his thumb traces patterns over the back of his palm like it always has. Never let go, never open the curtains back up. Breathe in all the air in the room so I don’t have to, stay here and warm me up.

His thoughts are too loud, bouncing around inside his head, and off the walls of the room, gathering in the space between his and Harry’s hands, and he isn’t sure he’ll be able to yell loud enough over their roar, so he shakes his head, allowing strands of hair to flop back down into his face. He’s waking up now, able to hear the birds singing outside the window, and smell the eggs and bacon getting cold on the table next to the bed. As much as he tried to avoid the morning, the day started without him, and he wanted to try be okay today, like he was yesterday, and last week. “You can talk, though.”

“Yeah? What do you want me to talk about?” Harry asks, voice audibly brightening. Sometimes, on his bad days, Louis wouldn’t let anyone talk. He’d send Harry away and keep his eyes closed for hours after he woke up. 

“Anything. Something happy. Something nice.” He watches the way Harry’s chest expands as he takes a breath. He wishes breathing could be as easy as it looked.

“I love you so much.” Harry says after a moment of thought, pulling their joined hands up into his chest so Louis could feel his heart beating. His eyes are welling up, and he studies a loose thread in the quilt thrown over their tangled bodies, shaking his head in the tiniest movement he could manage.

“I love you more than everything in the world, you know that? I love you so much, Lou.” Harry whispers again, voice hoarse. Discomfort nestles in Louis’ ribcage, right next to where his heart was expanding, filling up with love. He doesn’t know how to make himself believe Harry.  
“Don’t.” He pleads, trying to hold Harry closer at the same time. His skin felt foreign, and his bones ached, joints filled with lead, and he couldn’t do anything else but hold on to Harry.

He wants to tell him he loved him back, but the words wouldn’t come. They get caught between other thoughts, panicky ones about Harry leaving him, and morbid ones about what it must feel like to die, and he can’t locate the right words without running into things he doesn’t want to think about. 

“I just remembered a really good joke.” Harry says, switching topics briskly. Louis had had enough bad days for Harry to understand what he needed to hear.

“Please don’t.” Louis groans, but the corners of his mouth lift up in a barely-there grin. Of all the things in the world, Louis loves Harry’s awful sense of humour the most, if only because it brings out the boy’s Cheshire cat smile, and a set of dimples. 

“Okay, why did the cookie go to the hospital?” He pauses for dramatic effect, and Louis could already feel him smiling into his hair. “Because he was feeling crummy!”

Louis giggles unexpectedly, burying his face in Harry’s chest. “You told me that one last week.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Harry apologizes, still grinning into Louis’ hair. Louis knows he isn’t sorry at all, and It only makes the the terrible joke even worse.

Minutes pass, and the birds grow louder outside the window. Louis could just see Harry’s bird tattoos on his chest in the dark room, and he focusses on them, trying to chase away the sadness.

“You know, it’s not always going to be like this.” Harry murmurs, like it was a sentence he’d been thinking about for a while. Louis doesn’t respond. He’s exhausted, and the terrible joke had lifted his mood momentarily, but it had dissipated quickly, leaving Louis to his thoughts again. “Tomorrow we’ll go somewhere. We’ll get dressed up in terrible costumes and go out and no one will recognize us all day.” 

Louis wants to ask Harry to stop, wants to beg him to stop talking please, because he doesn’t want to think about hiding and keeping secrets and being unable to go out with his boyfriend. He doesn’t ever want to think about that. 

“And one day we’ll even be able to go out together without silly costumes and no one will care. We’ll go all sorts of places, Lou.” Harry continues, and Louis’ heart aches. 

“Wouldn’t it be nice.” He whispers into Harry’s chest, squeezing his eyes shut again, watching the fireworks go off behind his eyelids. Harry just smiles into his hair, and traces more patters into the skin on the back of his hand. Louis wishes he could tattoo the patterns into his skin.

They lay together in silence, and Louis loses track of time. He stares blankly at the zigzag pattern on the quilt, and tries not to think anything, tries not to feel anything. He’s grateful for the blanket draped over their heads, because he knows the pictures on the walls and the worn rug on the floor and the now cold eggs sitting on his bedside table are all too much. Everything is too much and not enough, and Louis doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins, because his brain is working at a thousand miles a minute, and grabbing one thought is difficult enough when he really needs to hold on to four or five. His joints hurt and his lungs are far too tired of filling with air. He’s unable to close his eyes, much less fall back asleep, yet there’s nothing in the world he’d rather do than sleep his life away. It feels like the day is slipping out between his fingers, and he knows he should hold on, but he wants nothing more than to let every day fall away until he has none left.

Eventually, Harry’s breathing grows steady and slow, ruffling Louis’ hair on each exhale and Louis registers somewhere in the back of his mind that he’s fallen asleep. Louis struggles with his thoughts for a while longer, trying to count Harry’s breathes, and keep track of his heart beat, hoping to memorize the patterns, hold on the steady rhythm. Finally, long after the birds have stopped singing, and air feels a bit less suffocating, Louis manages to whisper into the space where Harry’s neck meets his shoulder, “I love you too. So much.”


End file.
